D just learned she got 4s on her first two APs, both taken in 10th since her school limits APs until junior year. We aren’t concerned about college credit, focus is more on overall application package to get accepted. At first happy, but now surfing the ‘net, sounds like these days for a Top 50 school (not HYPSM) that a 4 is actually average?
These colleges want rigor, so it’s valuable that she took them. Amherst and Williams aren’t going to be impressed with 4’s, but for a lot of schools, it’s one part of a larger, overall package.
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These are your kid’s first two APs, taken in 10th grade. 4s are very good scores! For the record, both of my kids got into some highly selective schools with a mix of 4s and 5s (in response to the comment above, that mix was good enough for S26 to get into Williams).
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So basically, getting a 4 on an AP exam is like getting an A-/B+ on a final course exam. Kinda literally, it is a single test, and that is the amount of content it is supposed to cover, and that is the approximate grading norm it is supposed to use (and that is for an average college, so arguably on the higher side of that since this is in 10th grade).
OK, so how would colleges view an A-/B+ on a final exam? Well, that is a little ambiguous, because they typically only see final course grades. But that is already an important point, this is definitely less important than a final course grade, it is at most like part of a final course grade. In other words, if you take the AP class as well, your grade in that alone is already more important than the test score.
OK, so let’s say two 4s in 10th grade is at most like getting an A-/B+ in one class in 10th grade. I think that is likely an overestimate, actually, but that is good enough to illustrate the following point.
How much does that matter? Well, first, for many excellent colleges, that would be good already. But even for the colleges where the average GPA is higher than that, that is basically a nonevent.
Like you can do the math if you want. Five grades per term, six terms before you apply, that is 30 of these. If you had 29 As/4.0s and one A-/B+/3.5, you are talking like a 3.983 UW.
Which of course is fine for anywhere.
Long story short, this is obviously fine. For most colleges, you should in fact be happy. Moreover, if she is already getting 4s in 10th grade, then that is already a positive indicator for future APs. But really, what is going to matter much more both now and in the future is her actual grades in courses.
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Wow! Congratulations!
My GS with straight A’s, good EC’s, and a perfect 36 on ACT couldn’t get into Williams. 
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AP scores of “4” are defined as well qualified and are quite good though scores of “1” and “5” are more conclusive since those are assigned to a lower percentage. 18% overall are awarded “5” and 10% overall awarded “1”. Scoring “5” on a few AP exams taken junior and/or senior year will look better than scoring “3” or lower (with lower being much less likely in your case). Scores of “3” and now “4” are the most ambiguous (the higher the percentage awarded the score, the more uncertain); was the student capable of “5” under different set of conditions? Was it by just one point?
Wouldn’t it also depend on which AP exams, and the context of high school course work?
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Who knows how these decisions get made with acceptance rates like that? Congrats to your GS on a stellar record!
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Top 50s aren’t going to be wildly impressed by a 4… Usually, 15% to almost 50% (Depending on the test) get a 5, so it isn’t exactly superior in a set of kids taking APs. A large percentage of test-takers get a 4 or 5 (almost 70% get a 4 or 5 on BC calc!) but it DOES show the kid knows the material and is up to the work (so good in absolute sense).…. As you can see from the link some tests have few 5s and some have lots of 5, etc. AOs know this…. And also a bit depends on major choice (if you want to be an electrical engineer, a 4 in BC calc may hurt a bit at some schools, but a 4 in AP USH won’t)…. Also if your HS has kids taking 15 APs and everyone gets all 5, and the kids takes 2 with 4, is different, etc etc etc. All very contextual.
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Of course, score distributions have a lot to do with student self-selection. The score distribution for calculus BC is higher than for calculus AB, even though calculus BC covers more material and therefore should be more difficult. But calculus BC students tend to be self-selected to be those stronger in math than calculus AB students.
of course! But AOs, right or wrong, are still going to be used to seeing 5s all day long…I would wager, a lot, there is bias they want to see 5s in BC calc
(and similar for language APs are a lot of heritage speakers I am sure)
I think that this is most likely correct.
However, at this point I would not focus on university admissions. Instead, I would focus on each student doing whatever is right for that student. The student should take the classes that are right for them (with some attention to what is needed to graduate high school, and some attention to what universities in general are expecting, and some attention to getting a reasonable depth and breadth of classes).
I do not think that either daughter took any APs at all in their sophomore year of high school. They both did fine for university admissions (and went to schools that were a good fit for them).
I would not worry about it. If your D put in the effort, then congratulate her and get her some ice cream.
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I believe the guidance is still to self-report 4s on the application. They are unlikely to impress, but they do support mastery of the material and validation of a decent grade in the class.
There are a surprising number of instances in which a student has a A in the class and a 2 on the exam (for example), so demonstrating that this is not the case eliminates any such concens for AOs.
Congratulations to your D. Reiterating what others have said, continue to keep the focus on being a good student rather than a good applicant.
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The advice that we were given for S24 was that AP scores should only be reported if they are going to ADD to the application. For a student who is applying to top schools and has the typical excellent package for those schools, 4s do not add anything to the application so they shouldnt be reported. S24 who is at Williams did not report any of his AP scores since he had only take 2 by the end of junior year and one was a 4 and one was a 5.
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Thanks for the honest feedback. The precalc teacher used the AP format for the midterm and she bombed it despite having an A in the class, so she had been praying just to get a 3 on the actual AP. To her the 4 was a huge success, so I guess in our house we will still celebrate it even if an 5 would have been preferable when it comes time for applications next year and move on to junior year.
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For sure not everything has to be perfect, and along the way it is 100% worth celebrating the stuff where it took a lot of work to get to “good enough”! In a very meaningful sense that is more of a real victory than when perfect comes easy.
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That is worthy of celebration. It’s a big deal.
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This is not good advice. If an AP course is on the transcript and the exam score is not reported, the schools will assume the student may have received a 1 or 2. A score of 4 should always be reported even if it would have been preferable to have gotten a 5.
(There are, of course, cases where a student didn’t take the exam for whatever reason, and colleges understand this, but those cases would be one-offs, not every time a student scored a 4. If you took an AP course, schools are generally going to want to see your score.)
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Not sure I agree with this. I think that if there are too many missing AP scores (relative to classes taken), it would raise questions. One missing score on an application is not a big deal – could have been a scheduling conflict, a bad day, illness, or whatever, and doesn’t raise eyebrows. But several missing scores might look odd. Given that a 4 will validate a strong grade in a class (helpful because it would indicate there wasn’t grade inflation and that the strong grade was accurate), I would report it. Scores of 4 will neither get you in nor keep you out. Scores of 5 will not on their own get you in. (Unless a school requires that all scores be reported — very few in the US do – I would not report a 3 to a highly selective school.) Again, my kid got into Williams reporting two 4s and two 5s. I suspect the 4s were neutral on his application (the corresponding course grades were As), but leaving them out might have seemed strange and raised unnecessary questions.
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